Why were US states named after Aboriginal American tribes?

Question

Americans wanted to implement manifest destiny and own the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Why would they name territories and states after Aboriginal American tribes? For instance, why were North Dakota, South Dakota, and Kentucky named that way?

From the Americans' point of view, this would seem to do two things that are distinctly negative:

• It chips away at American influence. Names influence power and the perception of power. If Americans name a state "Gray Boulder" or "Madison", that gives Americans better influence than if they name it after an Aboriginal American tribe.

• It would seem to discourage settlement in those areas! Why would Americans leave from New York to settle in a remote area named after people who they are fighting, and who are characterized as hostile and savage?

I also don't buy the fact that they would need to do this to co-opt or placate the Aboriginal Americans in that area. I think it would have been obvious to all parties that the Americans had the military power and numbers to achieve their goals.

Answer 1

As DA. says, this question vastly oversimplifies things. However, there's actually a relatively simple answer: States were named after the Territories they were formed from.

Of course, then you have the next question: Why were the Territories named after Native American tribes? And the answer to that is that often, they weren't. Or at least, they were named after what one group called another group, rather than what the group called itself.

For example, here's North/South Dakota:

1. Louisiana is named after King Louis XIV (French). When the US bought it, they named the whole thing the Louisiana Territory.

2. When part of it became the state of Louisiana, the rest of it became the Missouri Territory, after the Missouri river, which was a name adapted by the French settlers from the name which the Illinois-speaking Native Americans called the Siouan-speaking tribe in the area. (The Missouria called themselves Niúachi in Siouan, but our name is derived from Wimihsoorita in Illinois).

3. When Missouri became a state, a chunk of the rest of the Purchase became the Nebraska Territory. Again, it was named for a river, in this case the Nebrathka or Nebraskier river, which was the name in the Otoe's language.

4. Finally, the Dakotas were named for the Native Americans in the area, although it wasn't what any of the tribes there called themselves. Instead, it comes from the word for "ally", which is how they referred to each other.

Corollary to all this, names have sticking power. If you've been calling the area where the Dakota people live "the Dakota's land" for 50 years, then when you go settle there you're settling in "Dakota land". That's what people further away will know it as, because the name has had time to spread. You may found your new city based on a name that's more familiar to you (your name, or a national hero, or a descriptive name, etc), but when you're referring to the general area, you refer to it by the name that most people will know it by. (This is the same idea where you might say that you're from "New York City" or "Eastern US" to someone from France, but the "Lower East Side" or a specific street to someone from Brooklyn.)

Names like Louisiana, New England, and Virginia are exceptions to this, because they were named either by people overseas (and thus didn't care what the locals already called it) or by newly arrived explorers who had yet to actually establish communication with the locals.

I'll also point out that very few names are based on what the tribes actually called themselves. Instead, they're almost all based on what they called each other. Further reading on that can be found in Wikipedia's page on Exonyms vs Endonyms (the names people give each other vs the names they give themselves). To the best of my (admittedly unresearched) knowledge, few (if any) "native american" names are endonyms. Every single one I know about, except for small towns or buildings that have been founded or renamed in the last ~100 years, is based on what some other group called the locals, or a corruption thereof.

Answer 2

This question's premise is oversimplifying and generalizing the relationships between Europeans and Native Americans over a huge span of time. There's a ton of history here with a lot of nuance.

The reason so many places in the US are named after Native American nations and/or named after the original Native American term is that we shared this land for hundreds of years. Sometimes quite peacefully, sometimes not.

There was no out-right "we must take all of this land" mantra. It was a slow process piece-by-piece. Sometimes legitimately, often not.

Answer 3

The U.S. states named after aboriginal tribes were states where whites and Indians got along relatively well. Often, these states were "less desirable" land that the whites didn't mind sharing with the Indians. For instance, the "Dakotas" are among the least attractive land in the United States. Americans herded Indians from other, more desirable states like Montana and Wyoming to the Dakotas.

Kentucky was another example. It was named after the Indian "Kaintucke" by Daniel Boone, a white "frenemy" of the Indians. He fought them, but he liked them, and they liked him, more than other white men. It was left alone for some time, because it was a "backwater" for Virginia.

It was the more desirable territories, particularly along the coasts, where whites didn't want to share land with Indians, and preferred European names. That is true for the 13 colonies, and also for Gulf Coast lands like Florida and Louisiana (state).